Financial translations shouldn’t be taxing...

Welcome to our blog post.

With the looming deadline for submitting tax returns on everyone’s mind I thought for today’s blog we would look at the area of translating financial documents and share with you our tips for a successful financial translation project.

Anyone who is currently in the process of submitting their tax return and is not an accounting genius knows that financial paperwork can get complicated (ever get the feeling the HMRC’s current strap line seems to be missing a bit of the end ‘Tax shouldn’t be taxing...but it blinking well is!!’?). One of the main reasons we find this is the case (specifically when financial translation comes in), is the shear range of different types of documents the word ‘financial’ can be applied to.

Seemingly it can be anything from a legal financial document detailing a house purchase or a spreadsheet of company data and figures to a brochure-come-book detailing a company’s annual financial report. It is also a service that both individuals and organisations may need - we often receive requests to translate an individual’s bank statement to accompany their visa or emigration application.

Whatever the requirement or document type, having the right translator/LSP to undertake the assignment is the key, so my first tip here is:

Make sure the translator who undertakes the translation is not only an excellent and fully qualified linguist but also an expert in the field of financial translations. It’s not a golden rule as qualifications don’t always equate to high quality translations but typically, a good financial translator will hold some form of financial or business qualification such as an MBA, accountancy qualifications or consultancy qualifications. Whether you're using an agency or employing the translator directly it's always worth asking what qualifications and, importantly, what experience they have in translating similar documents.

Another aspect that is commonly found in financial documents is the confidential nature of their content. If, for example, a company’s annual financial statement shows massive losses, generally it would not be ideal to make that information public until the paper has been officially published (often there will be an official publication date) – that content then is ‘confidential’. So my second tip here is ensure you sign a confidentially agreement or at least the LSP you’re working with has one in place which means that all content is treated in the strictest of confidence. You may wish to encrypt any documents that are being worked on and only share these files and their passwords with specific personnel working on the documents.

Tip # 3: If your documents have a lot of repeated text throughout them (such as in terms and conditions etc) that you need to have repeated at specific places within in your documents, it is worth finding out if your proposed supplier is able to handle translation memory. One of the big benefits of using TM is that it helps with the consistency of your document as well as potentially reducing the overall cost of the project (win-win).

In addition to using translation memory it would also be worth investigating if your proposed supplier has access to relevant financial dictionaries (Tip #4). The financial industry uses many complex terms and phrases that are not widely used (or known) outside the industry. Simply googling a specific term or checking out Wikipedia is often not enough to get the correct definition, and a good LSP will have access to a wide range of dictionaries specific to their areas of expertise.

Tip #5: As mentioned above we receive requests from both individuals and organisations who need to have their financial documents translated. Often when the requests come in from an individual the request has been made for legal or compliancy reasons such as they are looking to emigrate and they need to prove their income to an emigration committee. When this is the case I recommend always checking with the body that has requested the translation what actually needs to be translated. For example if they have requested you get your bank statements translated, do they require all figures, dates etc to be translated/localised and does the resulting translation need to be certified? Unfortunately having worked on a number of such assignments, what one emigration committee requests is not always the same as the next, so if always worth checking with them first.

Geting financial translation done the right way